West Flanders seeks workers in Mexico and India

The Flemish employers' organisation Voka wants to tackle the labour shortage in the province of West Flanders by recruiting workers from Mexico and India, De Standaard writes on Tuesday. 

The province will need more than 50,000 migrant workers by 2030. The employment rate in West Flanders is almost 80 percent, well above the 72.3 percent employment rate for Belgium as a whole. "Even with an 80 per cent employment rate in West Flanders, we would still be short of people," Bert Mons, director of Voka West Flanders, told De Standaard.

Voka West Flanders has already undertaken an exploratory mission to Mexico, and a mission to India is planned for November. The next stage is to organise talent missions with interested companies.

"Both Mexico and India have a surplus of well-trained people with a good work ethic and language skills," Mons said. 

However, labour migration is a politically sensitive matter. Mons says he is aware that there are still unemployed people in the region itself, but recruiting them is proving challenging. Attempts to recruit from nearby Wallonia are also proving difficult.

^{#FlandersNewsService | © ARUN SANKAR / AFP}